namron1

We moved back 2018 and fitted back into the life we left behind when we emigrated in February 2010. I felt we had returned home and have missed very little of our Aussie experience.

We lived initially in Hoppers Crossing and then Waurn Ponds, about 4 years in each place and I never new a neighbour in either place, neighbours all loved their electric garage doors, press the button as you approach, drive in door down and into the house. If my neighbours were lined up in an identity parade I would not know whom they were.

I found Australia to be very difficult to integrate into, I found it difficult to get any kind community feeling, it was rare to speak to anyone, but even rarer to find anyone to speak to who had any interest in conversation. It might have been unique to the two suburbs we lived in, and we only lived in one house in each suburb so I expected to get to know neighbours.  

Where we now live in the UK is the same house we owned before we emigrated in February 2010, we did not sell because the housing market was in the doldrums due to the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, there are 66 houses in the road and I speak to and know well approximately half the people living in the houses in the road, it a cul de sac. The issue is more going to the post box which is 0.5 miles away and getting back within 1 hour.

We have been back to Australia twice since we settled back in UK, because our emigration has resulted in a common result where we have one son and grandson back now living in the UK and 2 sons and one grandson living in Australia, and one of our sons in Australia is uncertain where he wants to live which is troubling us.

Australia has some pluses and a number of minuses, UK has a number of pluses and some minuses, I feel at home in the UK and no one can measure what that means in living feeling, each day in the UK living means a bit more that living in Aus, but I approach our life that due to family distribution, which emigrates cannot even contemplate when leaving their country, we will spend our time between Australia and the UK, as long as we can travel. But I have now retired to life in the UK and would only retire to life in Australia when  I can no longer fly the trip so I will settle where the most of my children live. 

I don't dislike Australia , I like a lot of things about the country, but it lacks any feeling of belonging, community contact was zero, and in Hoppers Crossing we did have 4 years living in road with people from mixed cultural backgrounds, and Australia claims to have managed to mixed multiculturalism successfully but I could no see it on the road I lived In Hoppers Crossing, my neighbours were friendly but no matter how hard we worked we could not find common community working.

We have many people here in the road we live in the UK originating from different countries in the world but I find they are integrating much easier in the local community than I ever found to be the case in Australia.

When I  lived in Australia I spent a lot of time on this site to try and understand the experiences of others and relate them to my experience, as I found it difficult to enjoy my life in Australia, there was always an emptiness feeling. But many people seem to try evaluate the situation  by doing comparisons between the 2 countries varying from the TV programmes to the other extreme of have I got a pool  in my backyard.

For me none of that mattered, all that matter was where did I  feel at home ,where was there a welcome feeling, and I did want to make Australia work for my family, but as I approached retirement I knew for me it was a better feeling in UK than in Australia      

Where have ISIS gone??

I must have missed some news if the have left planet earth!

Hi Gareth that is 8 days from the boat docked until delivery, a very long time for shipment to be at the docks, did u get any explanation as to why it took so long?

At the receiving end does all the items in the container get offloaded for the customs check?

Do they items then get loaded back into the container or do they get moved to a warehouse ready for transporting to the house?

We have now had all the hash tag supports, the social media support and hugging,  the we stand together and we love Manchester statements, the vigils, flower and teddy bears being laid at the scene,  the usual platitudes expressed on TV and Press outlets, the " we have done what we need to do because the world is run by social media" . It has been sorted!

And now this week the world moves on again, until the next time when it has to go through the same motions again to "show how we care"

But the families of the victims wake up Monday morning carrying all the pain of lost loved ones, they families get left behind to burden the pain for life, as the do-gooders and lefties once again get back on their campaigns to force on the world their leftist policies and continue to force on the world the endless movement of unchecked economic migrants, many of them haters of the western world that they move into.